Ask Cassandra

Chapter Five

Manny hadn’t seen Cassie all weekend, and was a little alarmed by how much he’d noticed that. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been busy. He’d spent the daylight hours hauling more trash out of the carriage house. Theo actually helped him with that on Sunday afternoon. There was a certain joy to be had from dropping stuff into the dumpster and hearing it smash, and Manny thought Theo felt it too.

Certainly, his uncle had relaxed enough to reminisce about earlier times.

“—and our dad said that if your father wanted to go to college, he’d better find better uses for his head than cracking it,” Theo concluded, chortling.

Manny shoved at the heavy wooden filing cabinet they were trying to muscle across the floor. It was too heavy to lift with just the two of them, and it would have been easier if they could have taken the drawers out, but the damn thing was locked, and the key had probably been lost decades earlier. “You dared Dad to jump off the roof?”

“Only the roof of the carriage house, and into a leaf pile,” Theo said. “I’d already done it, and only got a couple of scratches. But damn, your grandfather was mad.” Something passed across his face. “Guess we’ll never know if Arthur would have done it. Myself, I always thought he’d chicken out at the last second, but he kept saying he would have, if Dad hadn’t caught us in time. But if his college had been threatened…” He shoved at the cabinet again and grunted. “He really wanted to go.”

“And you?”

“Not so much,” Theo said. “Dad said he’d only be paying Eleusis fees for one of us, so I could take out loans or get a scholarship. I got some track and field scholarships to other schools, but in the end I decided to stay here and get my hands dirty.” He grinned at Manny. “Just as well for you, eh?”

“You definitely know the business better than anyone else,” Manny said. He could recognize Theo’s expertise. It was just expertise that was more useful for a different market, in a different branding environment. “Doesn’t seem fair that he’d only pay for Dad, though. Couldn’t he have split it? Hang on, I’m going to put my shoulder into this instead.”

“Well, Arthur was the oldest, and the smart one,” Theo said. He leaned into the cabinet beside Manny, and they got a few more inches. “Not that I was a dummy, but…” He shrugged. “Arthur didn’t think it was fair either. He offered to pay my way later.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You weren’t even born. But Augie was, and I figured Arthur would need the money for his own kid. And I was too old for college then. Wasn’t like I could pledge Arthur’s fraternity, was it? Hold on, there’s a piece of lumber in the way.” He reached down and yanked it free, and the sudden motion tipped the cabinet forward. Manny grabbed at it, but too late to stop it toppling. The cabinet spun and smashed into the concrete floor, and both men jumped back.

Manny stared at his uncle, who stared back. He wasn’t sure who’d started laughing first, only that they were both suddenly howling, leaning on each other and gasping for air.

“You can’t do this stuff by hand,” Theo said after a minute, wiping water from his eyes. “Definitely not by yourself, or even with two of us. What’s with the rush, anyway? It’s going to take a little more time to finalize the plans and get the loan approved, right?”

“I want them to be able to start construction without waiting on me,” Manny said.

Theo rubbed his chin. “How about this. Call your brother, and see if he can come up for a weekend. I’ll bring the hand-truck and the pickup from the vineyard, and all three of us can work on it.” He looked around, a little dubious. “Maybe I’ll bring the forklift, at that.”

Now there was an idea. He couldn’t take Augie from his family for a few weeks, but he could probably borrow him for a weekend. Or hell, Augie could bring the whole family up here. Manny hadn’t seen the kids for months, and he missed them. He even missed Ness, a little bit. His sharp-tongued sister-in-law looked a little too much like his ex for him to ever be completely comfortable around her, but her acerbic wit could be very entertaining, when it wasn’t aimed at him.

“Good idea,” Manny said, and twisted to one side, trying to ease a tight spot. “I’m not sure I’m built for manual labor.”

“You’re doing okay,” Theo said, which felt like the most positive thing he’d said to Manny in months. He rotated his shoulder a couple of times, looking away. “It meant something, you know. That your dad offered to send me to college. He always wanted things to be fair.”

Manny swallowed past the lump in his throat. “He was a good man.”

“Yes, he was,” Theo said. He was shading his eyes, squinting into the fading light. “I’m going to get going.”

“Stay for dinner,” Manny said. For once, he meant it.

“Nah, that’s okay. Feels like I’ve been hanging around like a bad smell lately. How are things going with that Cassie girl?”

“I think we could safely call her a woman,” Manny said. “And really well. On Friday she told me that she’ll finish the initial survey sometime this week. Then she’ll figure out a category system and start sorting things into it, and documenting everything in more detail. She’s making incredible progress.”

Theo’s voice was amused. “I wasn’t asking about her work ethic.”

“Oh,” Manny said. “Okay, well, I’d better get back to it. Bye.”

Theo laughed and walked away, and Manny straightened, absentmindedly poking a bruise on his hip. After nearly two weeks of concentrated effort and three filled dumpsters, the carriage house was beginning to look better. Not great, exactly, but they’d gotten rid of most of the stuff that was easy to move, and the cleared space made it easier to see the bones of the building.

He’d mentally reserved some of the antique machinery and tools for refurbishment. He could use them as decor, or put them on display, or hell, sell them online to collectors to help fund the renovations. Most of the interior partitions had been removed years ago, and what remained were the load-bearing walls, which he intended to work around rather than remove. There wasn’t any rot or insect damage, and the concrete floor could either be polished or covered, depending on how the design worked out. He could easily get six small suites on this floor, but perhaps he’d go for four small, and one luxury apartment, with a full kitchen.

It was ambitious, it was all ambitious, but it was also very doable. He knew contractors, he knew designers, he knew how to navigate codes and regulations. He knew the many intricate moving pieces that could and would get out of alignment, and would need someone to notice and shift them back into place. He could find and train good staff. He could make this work.

“I can make this work,” he said out loud, and pictured himself in the carriage house on its opening day, welcoming people in to look at the rooms, each with a slightly different theme, but working harmoniously together. He was going to do eras, with textiles and decorations appropriate to each. Not cheesy, corny fake history, but something real or at least respectfully replicated. A 20s suite, a 50s suite, a 70s suite… It would work.

In his head, he turned to the person beside him, smiling.

It was Cassie.

Manny’s eyes sprang open, releasing the vision.

In his secret fantasies of the past, it was always Helen who’d come back to witness his imagined triumphs, Helen who’d repented and left Paris, or maybe Paris had left her, or even died (of something swift and non-painful, he wasn’t a total monster) and Helen had returned, now delighted to accept the support and love he’d been so willing to give.

But ever since Ask Cassandra had told him to stop telling himself that story, he’d rejected that fantasy, forcing it out of his head every time it tried to wiggle in. He’d gone back to therapy, with a new therapist who’d guided him towards healthier ideations. “Visualize yourself succeeding, by all means,” he’d said. “But don’t make that success dependent on someone else’s approval—not your parents, not your brother, and certainly not your ex-wife. See yourself accomplishing your goals and focus on how good that will feel for you, because you did it.”

And he had. He did. He’d felt the joy himself, and he’d turned to Cassie, not so that she could approve, but so that she could share it.

“What the hell?” he muttered. Cassie wasn’t going to be here when the carriage house opened for visitors. She was leaving in ten weeks.

He was attracted to her, of course. Who wouldn’t be? She was pretty and smart, and she smelled great, and she wore tight jeans and warm chunky sweaters he wanted to just snuggle into. And they clicked. Lunch had become something he looked forward to. He’d shown her the vineyard on their runs and talked a little bit about his plans, and she’d been encouraging and interested. She’d told him more about what she’d been finding in the attic, and that had been interesting too. Not just the history of his family, but the enthusiasm with which she approached the task. She’d been utterly delighted when she’d discovered a treasure trove of love letters from the early 20th century, and it had been all he could do not to kiss her right then.

But it didn’t mean anything. He shouldn’t be placing her in his daydreams.

He’d stopped moving, and it was getting colder with the dimming light. Manny fetched his discarded jacket and shrugged it on over his thick plaid before bending to inspect the fallen cabinet.

It had landed on a corner before thumping flat onto one side, and the impact had cracked and twisted the burnished oak, huge, raw splinters jutting out. The frame was askew, and Manny squinted, playing his phone light into the gaps. There was something in the bottom drawer.

He went to the put-aside tools section, and after a few minutes of rummaging, came back with a crowbar. The craftsmanship was solid, but he was able to wedge the bar in a crack and lever it back and forth until something gave way and cracked. When he yanked at the drawer handle this time, it reluctantly shifted under his hand, and he could retrieve the object—a notebook covered in fuzzy green suede, stamped with the word RECORDS.

He flipped through it, but it was handwritten in fading pen, and seemed to be mostly numbers, with a few initials here and there. Probably more bookkeeping.

Cassie would like it. He’d show it to her tomorrow and ask where it might fit into the archives.

He tucked the notebook into his jacket and left, half his mind on being able to give Cassie something and the rest on what he might be able to scrounge up for dinner.

He spared only a brief thought on wondering why the ledger had been there in the first place, when the rest of the cabinet was empty and all the other documents were in the attic. Thinking about Cassie was much more fun.

Cassie slept well on Sunday night in her snug bed cave, and emerged to find new snow on the ground. It was just a light dusting, but she wrapped a scarf around her head before she traipsed to the big house. She probably wouldn’t get a run this afternoon

On the other hand, she could probably use a night at home to get more work done. She’d only managed to write one Ask Cassandra response the day before, and that wasn’t going to do much for her backlog. She’d thought too hard about it, that was the problem. She’d been trying to find the perfect words to persuade “E” that her worthless musician boyfriend’s devotion was more suffocation than support. He’d tried to make one person his sole support system, and she’d inevitably buckled under the weight. It was selfish at best and cruel at worst.

She’d spent far too much time worrying that “E” wouldn’t be able to see that.

Cassie took a deep breath, and regretted it as soon as the frigid air seared her throat. The reality of her job was that she couldn’t make anyone do anything. She could only tell the truth as she saw it, as clearly as she could. What they chose to do with that advice was up to them.

So tonight, she’d give more people more advice.

And maybe do some laundry. She was definitely running out of clothes.

With that in mind, she walked through the back door. She was hoping she’d find Manny in the kitchen, where she could ask about whether she could use the family laundry, or if she should find a laundromat in Weeping Rock. The kitchen was empty, and so was the stairwell, but she heard a muffled sound from the living room, and poked her head in.

Manny wasn’t there.

Aerope was. She was sitting cross-legged on the plush rug in the middle of the floor, surrounded by piles of neatly folded clothes that she’d obviously ferried down from a bedroom. More clothes, still on their hangers, were laid over the backs of chairs and sofas.

They were all men’s clothes. Blazers, button-ups, a lifetime’s supply of t-shirts and socks and underwear.

Aerope had an empty cardboard box in front of her, and a black plastic trash bag to one side. There was a pair of worn corduroy pants in her lap, and she was gripping them in both hands. Her face, when she met Cassie’s eyes, was absolutely blank.

Cassie froze. She desperately wished she’d never even thought the word laundry. “I was looking for Manny,” she said.

“He’s in Weeping Rock this morning,” Aerope said, without changing expression. “He’ll be back later this afternoon.”

“Right. Sorry. For intruding, I mean. And also… I’m so sorry.”

“I thought I’d get this out of the way before he came back, but I can’t seem to get started,” Aerope said, her voice conversational. “It made sense, because the dumpster is right there, by the carriage house. I could box up the clothes good enough to donate and throw everything else in the trash. They’re no use to anyone. They just take up space in the wardrobe. I can’t give them to the boys because they’re both so much bigger than Arthur. So, donation or garbage. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Cassie nodded. Her throat was tight with sympathy.

“I watched a show last week, with a very nice woman who said the best way to let go of things you loved was to thank them. I imagine she’s right. She helped a lot of people on the show. But I can’t thank these clothes. I’m not grateful.”

“I— can I help, Mrs. Pelopson? Is there something I can do to help?”

“You can leave,” Aerope said. She relaxed her grip on the pants and smoothed them with her palms. “I am aware that you don’t deserve to be chased away from this job. I know I have no authority. I understand that I must appear totally irrational to you. But if you want to help me, you’ll destroy your spreadsheets and notes and you’ll leave. I’ll make it right with Manny. I’ll pay your fee.” She looked straight at Cassie. “I’ll double it, if only you’ll go.”

“I can’t,” Cassie said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

The fierce light in Aerope’s eyes dimmed. “What would you know about right?” she said bitterly, and Cassie slipped away.

She went up the stairs quickly, a hard lump in her chest. What would she say if Aerope wrote in to Ask Cassandra? Seek professional help, definitely. Some gesture towards time making grief easier, something glib about there being a day in the future when she’d no longer be in this much pain? It was true, mostly, but it didn’t do much for people who were hurting right now.

And besides, Aerope hadn’t written to Ask Cassandra. She hadn’t asked Cassie for advice or welcomed her sympathy. She’d told her what she wanted, and it was something Cassie couldn’t—wouldn’t—do. So they were at an impasse.

At least the work was going well. The initial survey was nearly done, and she was delighted at what even that very cursory overview had turned up. She hadn’t been able to sit down and read any of the journals, commonplace books, or ledgers yet, but there were so many of them. The Pelopson hoarding habit had turned nearly two centuries of history into tangible artifacts, each one a piece of a long and complex story. It could all be very dull of course—the harvest went well, here’s what I paid for the new wagon—but even that could be of assistance to, say, economic historians or climate researchers.

Or, her personal favorite, the artifacts could be interesting in their own right. The Paston Letters of Norfolk had recorded five generations in the lives of that English family as they navigated the stormy waters of the Wars of the Roses. They were an invaluable resource for anyone studying daily life in medieval England, and also incredibly useful for anyone looking at the way language had changed in that period. The Pastons themselves weren’t always particularly admirable, but they were shrewd political strategists. They’d survived the war and dragged themselves up the social ladder in a time that had ruined many family fortunes.

The Pelopsons reminded her of them, in more than one way. Continuous sources for post-colonial American history weren’t as rare as they were for medieval England, but Cassie had the thrilling suspicion that the Pelopson archives could turn out to be a real find. She wouldn’t know for sure until she started the deeper examination.

After that, the big concern would be preservation. This airless attic wasn’t the best place for documents, and the storage in the tiny room left much to be desired. She could recommend digitization, which would take a long time and cost a lot if Manny hired someone privately, or she could recommend turning the collection over to an institution. Most big libraries and universities were wary of taking on new archival collections, but if this collection was even half as valuable as she thought it might be, they might be jumping at the chance.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she muttered, and went to work on the next box. They contained green suede-bound record books from the 60s and 70s, tracking profits and losses. It looked as though those had been good years for the winery, but she firmly resisted the urge to examine them more closely and added “Financial record books, handwritten entries, good condition, 1960-1977” to her increasingly lengthy spreadsheet, before adding a few more details on each one.

The work soothed her, as it always did. The past was messy and often terrible, but it was also done. It was past pain, not the present grief that was tormenting Aerope, or the issues that had her readers writing in, desperate for the advice of a stranger.

A stranger who was increasingly uncertain of her ability to give good advice, particularly when her own romantic life was a mess. She hadn’t had a real relationship for two years. Most of her dates weren’t as disastrous as the Isaac Corey incident, but they never really went anywhere past reasonable sex and some fun hangouts. She could have perfectly good sex with herself, and hang out with her friends and sisters, without all the extra effort that went into finding and screening strangers. Maybe she should stop trying, at least for a while.

Maybe she should look a little closer to home, at somebody she already thought was fun and sexy…

Cassie shook her head hard, and went back to work.

Manny was driving back from Weeping Rock when he saw the pickup truck on the corner, parked suspiciously close to one of the road signs the town had just re-erected.

Sure enough, when he slowed down to take a closer look, two local teenagers were standing in the ditch, trying to look innocent. Manny parked and walked back to them.

“Car trouble?” he asked genially.

The two teens looked at each other, then at him.

Manny knew Hercules Stormson on sight. He showed up on the high school digital billboard, usually holding a wrestling trophy and grinning, but occasionally holding a football (and grinning). The girl beside him was someone he didn’t recognize. She wore a long, pleated skirt in dark purple, a grey oversized woolen sweater with a cowl-neck, and black fingerless gloves that wouldn’t do anything to keep her hands warm.

“We’re fine,” Hercules said, flashing a charming smile. “But thanks for stopping, sir.”

Ow. He was being called sir by a teenager.

“Herc Stormson, isn’t it?”

Herc winced. “Uh, yes, sir.”

“No school today?”

“It’s a half day for seniors,” Herc said quickly.

“That must be nice. I hear you pulled off a great win against the Nemean Lions last week.”

“Oh, yeah! I mean, thanks, sir.”

Manny nodded. “And your dad told me you’d got some great scholarship offers. It would be a shame if something happened to sully your record. Like, for example, vandalism of public property and road sign theft. Especially when your dad’s the Weeping Rock chief of police.”

Herc’s eyes darted down the road as if Tyron Stormson might be hurtling towards them in his blue-and-white.

“Um, are you, like, accusing us of something?” the girl asked. She wasn’t smiling. She was staring right at him, as if she could bore a hole in his skull with her gaze. “Because that’s pretty creepy, just stopping by the road to harass teenagers.”

Herc muttered something that sounded like, “shut up, Trace,” but the girl ignored him. Her eyes were outlined with heavy black eyeliner, and her burgundy and black hair was in two long, limp braids. She looked like an updated version of the Goth kids Manny had met at college.

“You don’t know anything about us,” she continued passionately. “I don’t want your stupid road sign.”

“Great,” Manny said, feeling decidedly off-center. “Glad to hear it. Have a nice afternoon.”

He walked away, hearing the hushed whispers start behind him. Herc’s voice rumbled something in a warning tone, and he heard Trace’s voice break high and clear over it: “—he didn’t know that!”

Aha. So he hadn’t actually been wrong. Trace, whoever she was, clearly valued a strong offense as the best defense, but Herc had had the look of a kid rapidly deciding whether looking cool to his peers outweighed wrestling scholarships. That particular road sign was probably safe for now.

He and Augie had never gone for sign theft, though they’d done their fair share of dumb pranks. He’d snuck booze into school formals, helped prank call Augie’s Algebra II teacher, and assisted in the senior skip day prank, which had been led by the shop kids that year. They’d constructed various metal panels, all of which fit together during a sweaty early morning hour to convert the statue of the town founder into a lopsided T-Rex.

His own senior prank had involved something with the drama kids and an impromptu musical on the main quad. It was somehow less memorable.

Well, that had been how it went, when he was a kid. Augie strong and confident, the big man on campus—any campus. And Manny right beside him. Or, often, behind him. He’d never resented his brother for getting so many accolades. He admired him too much, was too delighted by every scrap of careless attention. He’d patterned so much of his early life after Augie. He’d gone to the same college, pledged to the same frat. If he hadn’t been gently guided away from Communications and towards Business Management by his advisor, he might have tried to follow Augie’s footsteps into journalism, a career he would have hated, and also been terrible at.

Hell, he’d even tried to marry Augie’s wife’s sister.

Something had changed, in the years since Helen. Manny respected and loved his brother but he didn’t have that same unthinking admiration any more. He didn’t like the way Ness and Augie interacted, no matter how much Augie swore that it worked for them. He didn’t want to fight and make up all the time. He wanted an equal partner and true friend. Not someone endlessly accommodating, the way Helen had tried to be, but someone willing to stand up for herself, someone who could call him on his shit and make him laugh. He wanted someone he could look after when she needed it, and someone who could look after him when he needed that.

He wanted…

He wanted what his parents had had. Before Arthur had died, and left Aerope so devastated with loss.

Manny pulled up outside the house and braced his hands on the sides of the wheel. After a few minutes, he blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

When he went into the kitchen, his mother was sitting at the table, her hands wrapped around a mug, staring into nothing.

“Mother?”

“Hm? Oh, hello, Manfred. How did things go with the accountant?”

“Federal estate tax return signed, sealed, and delivered,” Manny reported.

“That’s good,” Aerope said, a little more life coming into her face. “Thank you for doing this. I still remember what a nightmare probate was for my mother.”

Manny smiled. “I don’t mind. It was… I don’t know, it felt like a weird vote of confidence that Dad made me the executor of his will. I mean, I know it was probably because Augie’s busy…”

“It’s because he knew he could count on you,” Aerope said, and patted his hand. “Also, we decided we’d only make one of you do it for each of us, so we flipped a coin to decide. Augie gets me.”

“That’s nice?” Manny said. “Speaking of Augie, would you mind if he and the family came up for a weekend?”

Aerope’s face softened, as it always did at the mention of her grandchildren. “Goodness, no. We’ve plenty of room.”

“You might not see so much of Augie,” he warned. “I’m planning to exploit him for his labor to help clear the carriage house.”

“Exploit away,” Aerope said, her own tone slightly waspish. “He shouldn’t be leaving all of this to you anyway.” She pulled out the chair beside her and patted the seat. “Sit down, Manny. I need to talk to you about Ms. Troiades.”

Manny’s alarm bells started faintly ringing. “Really? And that’s a sit-down conversation?”

“She was terribly rude to me today,” Aerope said. “Pushy, intrusive, called me names…”

“What names?”

Aerope’s eyes darted around the kitchen. “I couldn’t possibly repeat them.”

“Okay,” Manny said slowly. “So I guess I should fire her.”

Aerope’s shoulders relaxed. “Maybe that would be for the best.”

“Actually, you know what? She called my mother names? I’m going to call her out online.”

“Oh, that’s not really necessary.”

Manny pushed back his chair with some force and stood up. “No, it really is. Don’t worry, Mom. I have a lot of contacts in social media.”

“There’s no need to drag her name through the mud.”

“Sure there is. By the time I’m through with her, Cassie Troiades will never get another job.” He stared at his mother. “She’ll have to completely rebrand, maybe spend thousands on training in a new career, leave the country, change her name…”

His mother’s eyes, which had widened with alarm, narrowed. “Very funny.”

“I’m not laughing, Mom. Butt out. I don’t understand where this hostility is coming from, and I’ve got to say I’m starting not to care.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Cassie is a good person and great at her job.” He pointed at her. “And by the way, you expecting me to fire someone because you say so doesn’t say much of how you think of me, either. You know you raised me better than that.”

“Manny,” Aerope said, her eyes closing. “I’m sorry I lied to you. It was stupid. But I don’t know what to do. She has to go, and you won’t listen to me…”

“Nope,” Manny said, and stomped out of the kitchen.

Halfway up the stairs, he realized he’d better talk to Cassie about this. He couldn’t think of a conversation he’d enjoy less, but at least he had something to sweeten the deal—the record book he’d yanked out of the broken filing cabinet.

Cassie was sitting at her customary table, looking intently at a photo album. She hadn’t heard him yet, so Manny stopped for a moment to look at her.

She was so pretty, with her round, pink cheeks and her bouncy curls. The light coming in the skylight above her desk turned the dusty attic air into a column of sparkling light, gilding her hair and reflecting off her glasses. A perfect picture of the modern scholar at work.

She lifted her head. “Hey.”

“Hello,” Manny said, smiling despite himself. “I brought you a present.”

He realized it was potentially misleading as soon as he’d said it, but Cassie lit up over the notebook as much as Helen had lit up over concert tickets.

“Where did you find this?” she asked, gazing at it with greedy eyes.

“In the carriage house, while I was cleaning it out. Locked inside a heavy filing cabinet, if you can believe it. It broke, and I saw that in the wreckage. Some kind of finances ledger. But there’s no name or date on it and I don’t know who wrote it when.”

“Were the other records in the location?” she asked. “What period was the filing cabinet? Were there any provenance details?”

“Should I have taken pictures?” Manny asked.

“Yes,” she said absently, and then blinked at him. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude. You didn’t know.”

“It’s still on the carriage house floor,” Manny said, amused. “I didn’t see any other records, but we can go look at it later, if you like.”

“Yes, please,” Cassie said. “Actually, I think I might know where this guy belongs. Wait here a second.” She walked into the archive room and came back a moment later with a box. The post-it on the front read “Assorted Record Books/60s-70s” in loopy, round letters. “This green suede is pretty distinctive,” she said, taking off the lid and carefully pulling out a couple of other notebooks. “Yes, I thought so—the same style of notebook. And even though your one isn’t dated, if we look at the handwriting… See those narrow H’s and slanted T crosses?”

Manny stepped closer behind her. He wasn’t above inhaling the scent of her hair as he looked over her shoulder. “It looks the same.”

Cassie nodded. “People can have similar handwriting styles, of course, especially if they’re writing in the same time period. I can’t really tell your great-great grandmother’s writing from her mother’s. But it’s easier the closer we move to the modern day, and less prescribed handwriting styles.” Her hands, nimble in their latex gloves, carefully flipped pages. “And if we could find some phrases or even words the same in both, we could make an even firmer identification. Look. There. ‘School fees,’ the same in both books.”

Manny squinted. “You’re right.”

Cassie tilted her head and beamed at him.

She’d smiled at him before, but he’d never been this close, inches from her lips. It was like staring directly into the sun, beautiful and blinding.

“I think I can safely say that this book was used by your grandfather,” she said. “Dating could be trickier. It looks like he ordered a bunch of these green notebooks in 1959. He must have liked them, because he kept using them, right up to 1977, where he started using some brown ones. In the early 80s, the vineyard switches to typed ledgers, and after the mid-90s, all of the financial records are printed.” Her eyes crinkled. “We lose the clues of handwriting and idiosyncratic materials when that happens, but we gain a lot in clarity.”

“You’re amazing,” Manny said, with sincerity. She hadn’t consulted her spreadsheet for a single one of those dates; it was all just sitting in her memory. “Wait a second, though. School fees aren’t a vineyard expense.”

“Oh, people with a family-owned business aren’t always great at separating personal finances from the business ones,” Cassie said. “Or they keep the records for both in the same ledger, which I think is what your grandfather did with this one.” She checked the notebook she’d pulled from the box. “Yes, vineyard expenses at the front, family expenses at the back.”

“My accounting professor would have a heart attack,” Manny said, and then heard the words that had come out of his mouth.

Cassie picked up the change in mood immediately. She didn’t pull away, but her expression shifted from one of avid interest to compassion.

“Well, that’s a turn of phrase that has a new meaning,” Manny said ruefully. “Too soon for jokes?”

“It’s never too soon for jokes,” Cassie assured him. “Humor is a very human reaction to grief.”

The phrase pinged something in the back of Manny’s brain, but before he could chase the thought down, Cassie turned away from him to put the notebooks back in their box, adding the one he’d brought her. “Speaking of grief,” she said carefully. “I think I need to tell you about an encounter I had with Aerope this morning.”

“Right,” Manny said, and took a step back, so he wasn’t looming over her in her space. “She um, she tried to tell me some story about how you’d been intrusive, and rude.”

Cassie winced.

“And called her names,” Manny added. “I pushed back a little, and she admitted she’d exaggerated.” Actually, Aerope had admitted she’d lied outright, but he discovered that he didn’t want to say that to Cassie. “I thought I should come up and ask you about it.”

“I didn’t call her names,” Cassie said, her eyes steady. “I think I did intrude on her in what she thought would be a private moment.”

Manny blinked. “Oh?”

Cassie looked down. “She was sorting your dad’s clothes, for donations or to throw away. It looked like she was finding it really difficult.”

“Oh,” Manny said. “Okay, yes, that explains some of it. We’re WASPs. We don’t like to emote in public.” He rubbed his forehead. “But she’s got to stop trying to get you fired.”

“I think she just wants me to leave, whatever it takes,” Cassie said. “I didn’t tell you this before, because you were already addressing the problem, but when she took me into Weeping Rock a couple of weeks ago, she offered to pay me the rest of my fee if I left early.”

“She what? Like a bribe?”

“That was the impression I got,” Cassie said. “I figured maybe she’d thought better of it, but she brought it up again today. She seemed very…determined.”

“I will talk to her again,” Manny said grimly.

“Today, she offered to double the money,” Cassie said, and met his startled gaze. “And she wanted me to delete my spreadsheet and toss all my notes. It’s maybe not my place to say anything, and I really don’t want to interfere with your family. It wouldn’t matter if she just disliked me. I don’t expect everyone to like me. But from what Steph Marshall has said, your mom normally doesn’t act anything like this. I think there’s maybe something else going on.”

Manny tried to keep his voice steady. “You think she might be unwell? Mentally?”

“That’s also a very human reaction to grief,” Cassie said steadily. “Look, if you wanted to release me from the contract so you can look after your mom, I’d understand. I could look at my schedule and maybe see if I could come back later in the year. You’d want to do some work on preserving the archives in the meantime, that little room isn’t the best place for them, but I get it.”

Manny blew out a breath. “That’s an incredibly kind offer.”

“If it were my mom…” Cassie said, and trailed off, shaking her head. “I absolutely would want the rest of my fee, of course,” she added, grinning impishly at him. “I’m not that altruistic. But you wouldn’t need to double it.”

Manny thought about it. His automatic response was that he didn’t want Cassie to leave, but she was bringing up some valid concerns. “Room and board is also part of your contract,” he said. “Would you be able to return to your previous living situation?”

“I’ve sublet my room,” Cassie admitted. “But I could ask my sister if she’d be willing to let me sleep on her couch for a while. Or I could move back in with my parents.”

“From your expression, I’m guessing that’s not the ideal solution?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. But they live in the suburbs and they…man, there’s just no non-crude way to put this. They fuck like bunnies. I’ve got three younger siblings, and if it weren’t for birth control, there’d probably be fifty of us.”

Manny began to laugh.

“Don’t mock me,” Cassie said ominously. “The number of times I’ve walked into a room to find them making out, it’s got to be some form of psychological torture.”

“I’m so sorry,” Manny said, wiping his eyes. “If it helps any, my dad just could not keep his hands off my mom’s ass.”

Cassie’s eyes widened with horror. “Why would that help?”

“Shared pain is halved pain?” Manny offered. “Okay, look, I really appreciate your offer, but I hope we can work something else out. If nothing else, I’m on a tight schedule for the carriage house refit, and using the archives will add a lot of appeal to potential guests.”

Cassie nodded. He’d spoken to her about his plans for the carriage house. “If it helps, I think I can already point to some things you might want to put on display or document in a brochure,” she said. “But honestly, there’s so much here. It deserves detailed attention.”

Manny nodded. “I want you to stay,” he said, perhaps with a touch too much honesty. “Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Cassie said. “I really don’t. This is maybe the most promising archive I’ve ever worked with. I wake up every morning excited to see more of it.”

“Of course,” Manny said, feeling a little deflated.

But Cassie wasn’t finished. She looked undecided for a moment, then her jaw firmed, and she took a step closer. “And that’s not the only thing that excites me.”

“Oh?”

“The job’s good. And the company’s better.” She glanced up at him, her tongue darting out to wet that tempting lower lip, and Manny saw her pupils flare.

He was very aware of their breathing, their closeness, the pounding of his heart. “You appreciate the company, huh?” His voice dipped lower, and this was unprofessional, this was dangerous, he had a million other things he should be thinking about, and he didn’t care.

Cassie’s scent was driving everything else out of his head. He dipped to meet her, and she rose to meet him, and then they were kissing, sweet and hot and good.

This was right. Whatever else was happening, this worked.